macro

Etymology 1

1933, from macro-, from French, from Latin, from Ancient Greek μακρός (makrós, “long”).

adj

1. Very large in scope or scale.
   Crumb's sexual fixation on gigantic women's legs became a major feature of his most celebrated images. Despite the common themes among macrophiles, Ed Lundt believes that no two macro fantasies are quite alike […] 1999, Katharine Gates, Deviant Desires: Incredibly Strange Sex, page 115
   But simply turning off iCloud backups was an incomplete solution. The macro problem, I wrote in my column last year, is that people have sacrificed ownership and control of their data. 2022-11-02, Brian X. Chen, “Personal Tech Has Changed. So Must Our Coverage of It.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
2. (cooking, colloquial) Clipping of macrobiotic.
   While there are many aspects to this way of living, the actual “diet” focuses on whole foods, consumed in traditional methods. A typical macro bowl includes grains, beans, steamed veggies, sea vegetables, and fermented foods. 2015, Elizabeth Stein, Eating Purely

noun

1. (colloquial, nutrition, countable, chiefly in the plural) Clipping of macronutrient.
   Don't be afraid to include some “unhealthy” foods in your diet. The overarching rule about foods is if it fits your macros (IIFYM), then you can eat it. That means you can eat chocolate, ice cream, and many other indulgences […] 2018, Spencer Langley, Flex Life: How to Transform Your Body Forever, Flex Life Inc., page 81
2. (colloquial, economics, uncountable) Clipping of macroeconomics.
3. (colloquial, photography, countable) Short for macro lens.
   Most macros are made by camera manufacturers to fit their cameras 1980, Popular Science, volume 217, number 6, page 94
   The lens was a macro, capable of everything from an “infinity shot” to a close-up in which a single fingerprint filled the entire frame. 2008, Richard Satterlie, Agnes Hahn

Etymology 2

1959, shortened form of macroinstruction.

noun

1. (programming) A comparatively human-friendly abbreviation of complex input to a computer program.
   The preprocessor expands any embedded macros into source code before it is compiled.
   There's also a spam filter in the code now, so if someone attempts to flood people's screens with macros or a bot, everything after the first few lines is thrown away. 1998, Dr. Cat, “Furry web site plug”, in alt.fan.furry (Usenet)
   A recurring theme in this book is to record an Excel macro and then show how to adapt the recorded code. 2004, Paul Kimmel, Excel 2003 VBA Programmer's Reference, John Wiley & Sons, page 2
   Languages belonging to the Lisp family make use of macros to provide support for compile-time metaprogramming. 2010, Debasish Ghosh, DSLs in Action, Simon and Schuster
   This should make intuitive sense because the purpose of the macro system is to transform code from one valid form to a final form, such as inserting logic automatically that would otherwise have been written explicitly. 2021, Dean Wampler, chapter 24, in Programming Scala, 3rd edition, O'Reilly